Thursday, October 27, 2016

by Gregg ChadwickI wrote this when I heard of Lou Reed's death in 2013. Three years on the thoughts still stand. Reposted as an elegy to an inspirational figure for so many. "Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it." - David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll﻿ Heart - Lou Reed"Well hey, man, that's just a lieIt's a lie she tells her friends'Cause the real song, the real songWhere she won't even admit to herselfThe beatin' in her heartIt's a song lots of people knowIt's a painful songA little sad truthBut life's full of sad songsPenny for a wishBut wishin' won't make you a soldier.With a pretty kiss for a pretty faceCan't have it's wayY'know tramps like us, we were born to pay - From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.Uncreditedspoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.

When I found out about Lou Reed's death yesterday morning from Rolling Stone's twitter feed I turned to my Lou Reed playlist and put Reed's coverof Blind Lemon Jefferson's haunting blues number - See That My Grave is Kept Clean along withAntony and the Johnsons' song with Lou Reed - Fistful of Love, and Reed's elegiac urban hymn Berlin, on repeat.

For many of us who came of age and under the influence of the New York City of the 1970's and 1980's, Lou Reed was New York. While at NYU working on my grad degree in art, Reed's music provided an aural map for my explorations across the city. Reed's staccato talk/singing proved to be a gruff yet tender guided tour through my artistic and lovelorn ventures. Often while on the A train, Marty Fogel's Junior Walker fueled sax riff on Reed's Shooting Star wouldblare in my walkman's headphones. And Walk on the Wild Side always seemed to accompany me across Washington Square.

Gregg ChadwickGhosts of New Amsterdam24"x36" oil on linen 2013

Reed's urban suite New Yorkkept me close to the city I loved even as I moved west to California. On a trip back to Manhattan a few years later, a friend who had opened a restaurant in the Village told me that she thought that she had been given a sign that she would make it, because Lou Reed was becoming a regular at her joint. Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Goodrumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel toWings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past.

Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie,

Gregg ChadwickBrecht's Song30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

As Gavin Edwards wrote in Rolling Stone,"While many musicians have made Berlin albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973) is the wrist-slashing standard against which they're all judged. When the record concluded with the epic ballad Sad Song, it felt like the whole world was shutting down." Berlin forces us to wrestle with the dead as we walk through its haunted and enchanted streets. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. In the city of Berlin, the political and the personal merge, as evidenced in Lou Reed's Berlin album and David Bowie's recent song Where Are We Now?. In Berlin we are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age and die, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade.

Gregg ChadwickRauch Licht (Smoke Light)30"x22" monotype on paper 2011

During the last years of his life, Lou Reed continued to work with and inspire younger musicians and artists. One of the most fruitful of these mentorship/collaborations was his work with Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons. John Hodgman in the New York Times recounts how the cover image of Antony's EP, I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy "caught the attention of the producer Hal Willner, who bought the EP and played it for Lou Reed, with whom he was working at the time:'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989, Lou Reed explained that he and Bruce Springsteen were both recording albums at the Record Plant in New York City when an engineer suggested inviting Bruce over to record the "Slipaway" vocals on Reed's song Street Hassle. The last line was Reed's, written with Springsteen's Born to Run in mind:Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay

Sunday, October 16, 2016

I have been carrying my copy of Jana Prikryl's engaging book of poems "The After Party" with me for a few months now. Before I go out the door, I almost always slip the collection into an open slot in my bag. On recent travels from Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Carmel, to Milwaukee, to Memphis - Prikryl's book has been with me. Each destination flavors my reading of her poems, almost like memory itself. And in a sense that is what Prikryl does in "The After Party". In her book we travel with her through a series of moments, or times, or places, or memories. Unlike many books where the narrator disappears into the text only to reappear as an overbearing Disney-ride like explicator, in "The After Party" Prikryl joins us on a journey through time. Memory can be like an artist's drawing full of smudged marks, erasures, and fantasies. Prikryl acknowledges this in her poems and lets us glide through her veils of time. From the former Czechoslovakia to the "Thirty Thousand Islands" of the Georgian Bay in the Canadian realm of Lake Huron, Prikryl creates worlds of time-images. I urge you to carry "The After Party" with you. Read it on the train. Find a favorite passage while waiting in line at the pharmacy. Share it with your local barista. The book is that good. Prikryl reminds us that a life is made up of moments, upon moments, upon moments.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

It doesn't matter if we are straight or gay or transgender--we are one people, we are one family, we are one love. #NationalComingOutDay

From HRC: Every year on National Coming Out Day, we celebrate coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) or as an ally. Today, Oct. 11, 2016, we mark the 28th anniversary of National Coming Out Day.28 years ago, on the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, we first observed National Coming Out Day as a reminder that one of our most basic tools is the power of coming out. One out of every two Americans has someone close to them who is gay or lesbian. For transgender people, that number is only one in 10.Coming out - whether it is as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or allied - STILL MATTERS. When people know someone who is LGBTQ, they are far more likely to support equality under the law. Beyond that, our stories can be powerful to each other.In honor of National Coming Out Day, HRC honors all who have come out as LGBTQ or as a straight ally for equality – that takes bravery, and we commend you.Every person who speaks up changes more hearts and minds, and creates new advocates for equality.Watch HRC's National Coming Out Day 2016 video:

Saturday, October 08, 2016

In honor of the Major League Baseball playoffs and my Grandpa Joseph Chadwick - my new small painting "Stealing Home (Jackie Robinson)" Jackie Robinson-UCLA grad, civil rights warrior, Brooklyn Dodger, all around hero. Painting will be on view this weekend at the Santa Monica Art Studios 12th Anniversary

At the Santa Monica Art Studios, I am part of a community of artists - driven to create, share knowledge and experience, and help the community at large.

This weekend, I would be honored to have you join the long list of visitors to my studio #15 at the Santa Monica Art Studios.

Bono and I have a bit of a history with Bullet the Blue Sky and its deeply held meaning in terms of a vision of America. I wrote Bono in 2008, the night before his planned meeting with then VP candidate Sarah Palin. (Full letter here- Bullet the Blue Sky ) I asked Bono then to "please remember what America means. Please remember your inspiration to write and perform "Bullet the Blue Sky" as you watched the Reagan administration's support of Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras. America is not torture, Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. America is the promise of hope and liberty." Last night in San Francisco, Bono spoke truth to a candidate in love with power and himself. They posted a video of the song with a simple title - Liberty... Bravo to U2!

Santa Monica-based artist Gregg Chadwick has been painting for three decades. His current studio is an old airplane hangar where the flurry of takeoffs and landings on the runway outside seems to creep into Chadwick’s paintings as he explores movement and travel within his light-filled paintings. His current series of paintings is entitled ‘Mystery Train’ and evokes the railways of America that Chadwick says run in his blood. His grandfather worked as a fireman, stoking coal in steam engines before advancing to train engineer on the Jersey Central Line. Chadwick often says that family gatherings brought the rhythms of the rails home. The sounds of railroad workers echoed in the music that Chadwick’s relatives played in the shadows of the train lines outside. For Chadwick and many others such as writer Greil Marcus, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, and musicians Junior Parker and Elvis Presley, the enduring mythos of America and its legacy is wrapped in the blues notes of the song ‘Mystery Train’

Chadwick's thoughts on the intersection of art, culture, and politics can be found on his blog, Speed of Life.

Chadwick's flickr page which is often updated with new finished paintings and work in progress is at: